Chris Trotter has joined the leftwing chorus in favour of state funding of political parties, but he bases this support on an analysis of party change in NZ that is very flawed. It is worth dealing with his points.
In his column Trotter pays homage to the mass membership model of political parties, and correctly identifies the benefits and superiority of this model. He says that the mass party is much more democratic, has deep roots in the community, and offers ‘an organic link between its members of Parliament and the socio-economic interests they represented’.
But he then suggests that the transformation of Labour and National into elite cadre parties was merely a consequence of Rogernomics and Ruthanasia, because these ‘harsh free-market policies were imposed upon rank-and-file members from above’. This analysis ignores all the other important contributors to change – such as socio-economic changes, the media revolution, and increases in state funding. For while neo-liberalism (and the general new ideological consensus of the parties) has helped make NZ parties unattractive, party membership was falling before the mid-80s and surely would have fallen even without the freemarket revolution.
Trotter argues that the decline in membership numbers led to parties being more dependent on both wealthy individuals and the state. But a strong case can be made that the dominant causes and consequences are around the other way: the vast increase in sources of money from the state, in particular, meant that NZ parties became much less reliant on their members and therefore the parties stopped bothering to provide the incentives for people to join parties. Trotter says that membership decline happened first, and then in 1996 (with MMP) state funding suddenly occurred. But backdoor parliamentary funding – of which the currently scandal involves – was actually massively increased in the 1980s.
In terms of the current era, Trotter argues that ‘With Labour’s return to its social democratic roots in the late 1990s, state assistance became ever more vital.’ First I would strongly disagree that Labour has returned to the left and moved away from business-friendly policies – see my 2001 article on the nature of the Clark Government. Second, Labour has actually been very well supported by business in recent years. Third, I would argue that Trotter again has cause and consequence around the wrong way. His formulation is that “change in politics” leads to “change in funding”, when in reality it has been Labour’s (and other parties’) reliance on state funding has lead them to be politically divorced from their socio-economic interests.
Next Trotter says that if sources of state funding are reduced, then ‘our politics will be handed over to those with the most money’. I think this basic (and commonly agreed) idea about democracy and money is extremely exaggerated. Money just doesn’t play the very strong role in politics that people think. There's quite a lot of examples, but I will just point out a couple. Act have been a huge spender in elections. In 1999 they were by far the biggest spender and in 2005 they still spent quite a lot. But it doesn't actually buy them much. Other parties like the Greens and NZ First constantly poll higher because they've got something "better" to sell. Money hasn't really helped Act. Likewise, the Alliance polled best in its early days when it had absolutely no money - 18% etc. As it got more and more resources (millions of dollars) it actually went down hill fast. There doesn't really seem to be any great correlation between election spending and success. Additionally, over time I think people have got very cynical about parties spending a lot, so big spending campaigns can be counterproductive.
Another difference I have with Trotter’s article is his idea that mass parties are less ideological than the new elite cadre parties:
The larger a party becomes, and the more open-ended its formal objectives, the harder it is to prevent its original ideals from being watered down or abandoned. A tightly knit band of ideological soul-mates is a much surer guarantee of party orthodoxy than a mass of ordinary citizens generally, but not rigidly, adhering to a broad set of political principles.
I think it is entirely the opposite. A party that has organic and mass roots in a particular section of society is more likely to represent those interests with particular programmatic clarity while elite-professional cadre parties tend to operate as self-interested organisations (or businesses) that blandly chase the floating voter. But more on this another time.